1 Yale University.
2 University of California, San Francisco.
Perspect Psychol Sci. 2017 May;12(3):422-435. doi: 10.1177/1745691616673192.
By some accounts, global economic inequality is at its highest point on record. The pernicious effects of this broad societal trend are striking: Rising inequality is linked to poorer health and well-being across countries, continents, and cultures. The economic and psychological forces that perpetuate inequality continue to be studied, and in this theoretical review, we examine the role of daily experiences of economic inequality-the communication of social class signals between interaction partners-in this process. We theorize that social class signals activate social comparison processes that strengthen group boundaries between the haves and have nots in society. In particular, we argue that class signals are a frequent, rapid, and accurate component of person perception, and we provide new data and analyses demonstrating the accuracy of class signaling in 60-s interactions, Facebook photographs, and isolated recordings of brief speech. We suggest that barriers to the reduction of economic inequality in society arise directly from this class signaling process through the augmentation of class boundaries and the elicitation of beliefs and behaviors that favor the economic status quo.
据一些报道称，全球经济不平等处于有记录以来的最高水平。这种广泛的社会趋势的恶劣影响是明显的：不平等的加剧与各国、各大洲和各种文化的健康和福祉较差有关。造成不平等的经济和心理因素仍在不断研究中，在这篇理论评论中，我们考察了日常生活中经济不平等的体验——互动伙伴之间的社会阶层信号的交流——在这一过程中的作用。我们的理论认为，社会阶层信号激活了社会比较过程，加强了社会中贫富之间的群体界限。特别是，我们认为阶级信号是个人感知的一个频繁、快速和准确的组成部分，并提供了新的数据和分析，证明了在 60 秒的互动、脸书照片和简短演讲的录音中阶级信号的准确性。我们认为，社会经济不平等减少的障碍直接源于这一阶级信号过程，因为这一过程加剧了阶级界限，并引发了有利于经济现状的信念和行为。
